I recently got news of a hugely accomplished oil man dying. This guy was the top guy in charge of finding oil for Exxon across most of the USA (barring California and Alaska) when he retired. Years after retirement, he once told me that we had just gotten “spoiled” and our addiction to cheap oil was basically unsustainable.
Tesla was on a “death watch” nearly one decade ago. News coverage and editorials frequently postulated Tesla’s coming demise. “It couldn’t produce cars,” said some critics. “No one wanted its cars,” skeptics claimed. “Its cars broke down around every turn,” liars lied. “Where would people charge? Where could the cars be fixed?” The barriers to success were many and large.
At the beginning of the year, we asked you to put down your estimates for total electric car sales in the US in 2017, sales by model, and sales by type of EV. With 6 months of sales under our belts, I thought it would be interesting to check in and see how those projections look today. Note that we’re just looking at US sales, FYI. Global sales are impossible to track and I’d rather not play with those estimates today.
With Tesla Model 3 now in production, we’re having a lot of fun. The naysayers have not exactly quieted down (they actually seem louder than ever), but yet another major milestone they said was impossible is already in the rearview camera. New details on the Model 3 are coming out on Friday along with the final unveiling of the production version of the car. There will surely be some fun surprises. However, more or less, we know what the Model 3 is offering.
It’s a common argument — whether worded so directly or not. It’s a reason used to not start a business, to not advocate for better government policies, to not launch a new product. This simple argument stifles many an effort to make the world better.
On vacation this past week? Check out the top 20 articles of the past week (in terms of their views by humans around the world) to catch up:
If you’ve followed CleanTechnica for long, you’ve surely run across the “100% renewable energy” work of Mark Jacobson. Basically, he has been uncovering how the world could go 100% renewable (on a country-by-country basis, and on a state-by-state basis in the US). You’ve probably also heard of a man who goes by the name Elon Musk — a South African dude now living in California who has a cleantech startup named after an old-timey dude from Croatia.
In a couple of hours, we’re launching into another #Electrifying webinar, this time focused on the BMW i3, its under-acknowledged benefits, and how it might compare to the Tesla Model 3. As mentioned a few days ago, here are the key details:
First of all, let me say that if anyone else creates a superfast charging network anything close to Tesla’s, I’ll be one of the first people to cheer it on and I may cheer it more loudly and broadly than anyone else. My goal is to stimulate the transition to zero-emissions transport as quickly as possibly, not to loyally attach my dreams to one company over every other one because I like the logo. Companies that do good stuff deserve to get praised and rewarded.
Now that I’ve been driving an electric car (a Tesla Model S) around on a regular basis for a few weeks, I’m getting bored with the most common questions. Over and over again…
